John Maeda Leaving RISD for Kleiner Perkins

Last fall, Silicon Valley powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers launched a number of initiatives to attract and develop design talent, and now they’ve recruited the ultimate design mind: John Maeda. The computer scientist, artist, author, designer, and overall shape shifter announced this week that he will leave his post as president of the Rhode Island School of Design at the end of the fall semester to become design partner at KPCB.

In his new role, Maeda will help KPCB’s entrepreneurs build design into their company cultures; he will also chair the eBay Design Advisory Board, working with the company to evolve design capabilities. “The courage, inspiration and rigor that RISD students show in their work and their choices to lead—why we say that RISD is the Reason I’m Sleep Deprived—is what inspired me to seize these opportunities,” Maeda notes in the video farewell (below) he sent earlier this week to the RISD community. “I am passionate about revealing art and design’s role in innovation, and this next step represented irresistible pathways to strengthen design’s place in the digital age.”